Thunder Point (23 page)

“I’m looking for Earl Stacey,” Dillon told him.

The man peered at him over the top of reading glasses. “You ain’t gonna spoil my day with no bills, are you?”

“Ferguson told me to look you up,” Dillon said, “Brigadier Charles Ferguson. My name is Dillon.”

The other man smiled and removed his glasses. “I’ve been expecting you. Come right this way,” and he pushed open the door and led the way into the house.

“I’m on my own since my wife died last year.” Stacey opened a door, switched on a light and led the way down wooden steps to a cellar. There were wooden shelves up to the ceiling, pots of paint stacked there, cupboards below. He reached in and released some kind of catch and pulled it open like a door revealing another room. He switched on a light.

“Come into my parlor.”

There was all kinds of weaponry, rifles, submachine guns, boxes of ammunition. “It looks like Christmas to me,” Dillon told him.

“You just tell me what you want, man, and Ferguson picks up the tab, that was the arrangement.”

“Rifle first,” Dillon said. “Armalite perhaps. I like the folding stock.”

“I can do better. I got an AK assault rifle here with a folding stock, fires automatic when you want, thirty-round magazine.” He took the weapon from a stand and handed it over.

“Yes, this will do fine,” Dillon told him. “I’ll take it with two extra magazines. I need a handgun now, Walther PPK for preference, and a Carswell silencer. Two extra magazines for that as well.”

“Can do.”

Stacey opened a very large drawer under the bench which ran along one wall. Inside there was an assortment of handguns. He selected a Walther and passed it to Dillon for approval. “Anything else?”

There was a cheap-looking plastic holster with the butt of a pistol sticking out of it and Dillon was intrigued. “What’s that?”

“It’s an ace-in-the-hole.” Stacey took it out. “That metal strip on the back is a magnet. Stick it underneath anywhere and as long as it’s metal it’ll hold fast. The gun don’t look much, point-two-two Belgian, semi-automatic, seven-shot, but I’ve put hollow-nosed rounds in. They fragment bone.”

“I’ll take it,” Dillon said. “One more thing. Would you happen to have any C4 explosive?”

“The kind salvage people use for underwater work?”

“Exactly.”

“No, but I tell you what I do have, something just as good, Semtex. You heard of that stuff?”

“Oh, yes,” Dillon said. “I think you could say I’m familiar with Semtex. One of Czechoslovakia’s more successful products.”

“The terrorist’s favorite weapon.” Stacey took a box down from the shelf. “The Palestinians, the IRA, all those cats use this stuff. You gonna use this underwater yourself?”

“Just to make a hole in a wreck.”

“Then you need some detonation cord, a remote-control unit or I’ve got some chemical detonating pencils here. They work real good. You just break the cap. I got some timed for ten minutes and others for thirty.” He pushed all the items together. “Is that it?”

“A night sight would be useful and a pair of binoculars.”

“I can do them too.” He opened another drawer. “There you go.”

The night sight was small, but powerful, extending if needed like a telescope. The binoculars were by Zeiss and pocket size. “Excellent,” Dillon said.

Stacey went and found an olive-green Army holdall, unzipped it, put the AK assault rifle in first and then the other things. He closed the zip, turned and led the way out, switching off the light and pushing the shelving back into place. Dillon followed him up the cellar stairs and out to the porch.

Stacey offered him the bag. “Mr. Dillon, I get the impression you intend to start World War Three.”

“Maybe we can call a truce,” Dillon said. “Who knows?”

“I wish you luck, my friend. I’ll send my bill to Ferguson.”

Stacey sat down, put on his reading glasses and picked up his newspaper, and Dillon walked out through the small garden and started back toward the waterfront.

He was walking along the side of the harbor to where the water taxis operated from when he saw that the Caneel ferry was in, a gangplank stretching down to the dock. The Captain was standing at the top as Dillon went up.

“You staying at Caneel, sir?”

“I certainly am.”

“We’ll be leaving soon. Just heard someone’s on the way down from the airport.”

Dillon went into the main cabin, put his bag on a seat and accepted a rum punch offered by one of the crew. He glanced out of the window and saw a large taxi bus draw up, a single passenger inside, went and sat down and drank some of his punch. One of the crew came in and put two suitcases in the corner, there was the sound of the gangplank being moved, the Captain went into the wheelhouse and started the engines. Dillon checked his watch. It was five-thirty. He put his plastic cup on the table, lit a cigarette and at the same time was aware of someone slumping down beside him.

“Fancy meeting you, dear boy,” Charles Ferguson said. “Bloody hot, isn’t it?”

Dillon had a quick swim off Paradise Beach, conscious that the
Maria Blanco
was still at anchor out there, then he went back up to the cottage, had a shower and changed into navy blue linen slacks and a short-sleeved white cotton shirt. He went out, crossed the vestibule and tapped on the door of 7E.

“Come,” Ferguson called.

Dillon entered. The set-up was similar to his own, the bathroom marginally larger as was the other room. Ferguson, in gray flannel slacks and a white Turnbull and Asser shirt, stood in front of the mirror in the small dressing room easing the Guards tie into a neat Windsor knot at his neck.

“Ah, there you are,” he said, took a double-breasted navy blue blazer and pulled it on. “How do I look, dear boy?”

“Like an advertisement for Gieves and Hawkes, the bloody English gentleman abroad.”

“Just because you’re Irish doesn’t mean you have to feel inferior all the time,” Ferguson told him. “Some very reasonable people were Irish, Dillon, my mother for instance, not to mention the Duke of Wellington.”

“Who said that just because a man had been born in a stable didn’t mean he was a horse,” Dillon pointed out.

“Dear me, did he say that? Most unfortunate.” Ferguson picked up a Panama hat and a Malacca cane with a silver handle.

“I never knew you needed a cane,” Dillon said.

“Bought this during the Korean War. Strong as steel because it has a steel core weighted with lead at the tip. Oh, and here’s a rather nice device.”

He turned the silver handle to one side and pulled out a steel poniard about nine inches long.

“Very interesting,” Dillon said.

“Yes, well we are in foreign parts. I call it my pig sticker.” There was a click as Ferguson rammed the poniard home. “Now, are you going to offer me a quick drink before we go out or aren’t you?”

Dillon had negotiated a supply of Krug from room service, had several half-bottles in one of the iceboxes. He filled two glasses and went out to Ferguson on the terrace, picking up the Zeiss field glasses on the way.

“That large white motor yacht out there is the
Maria Blanco
.”

“Really?” Dillon passed him the Zeiss glasses and the Brigadier had a look. “A sort of minor floating palace I’d say.”

“So it would appear.”

Ferguson still held the glasses to his eyes. “As a young man I was a subaltern in the Korean War. One year of unmitigated hell. I did a tour of duty on a position called the Hook. Just like the First World War. Miles of trenches, barbed wire, mine fields and thousands of Chinese trying to get in. They used to watch us and we used to watch them. It was like a game, a particularly nasty game, which exploded into violence every so often.” He sighed and lowered the glasses. “What on earth am I prattling on about, Dillon?”

“Oh, I’d say you’re going the long way round to the pub to tell me that you suspect Santiago’s watching too.”

“Something like that. Tell me how far things have gone and don’t leave anything out, not a single damn thing.”

When Dillon was finished, he refilled the Brigadier’s glass while Ferguson sat there thinking about it.

“What do you think the next move should be?” Dillon asked.

“Well, now you’ve gone and got yourself tooled up by Stacey I suppose you’re eager for confrontation, a gunfight at the OK Corral?”

“I’ve taken precautions, that’s all,” Dillon said. “And I needed the Semtex to blast a way into the U-boat.”

“If we find it,” Ferguson said. “And not a murmur from the girl.”

“She’ll turn up eventually.”

“And in the meantime?”

“I’d like to take things further with Carney. We really do need him on our side.”

“I can see that, but it would be a question of how to approach him. Would a cash offer help?”

“Not really. If I’m right, Carney is the kind of man who’ll only do a thing if he really wants to or if he thinks it right.”

“Oh, dear.” Ferguson sighed. “Heaven save me from the romantics of this world.” He stood up and glanced at his watch. “Food, Dillon, that’s what I need. Where shall we eat?”

“We could walk up to Turtle Bay Dining Room. That’s more formal, I hear, but excellent. I’ve booked a table.”

“Good, then let’s get moving, and for heaven’s sake put a jacket on. I don’t want people to think I’m dining with a beachcomber.”

Out in the gathering darkness of Caneel Bay, an inflatable from the
Maria Blanco
nosed in beside Carney’s Sport Fisherman,
Sea Raider
, the only sound the muted throbbing of the outboard motor. Serra was at the helm and Algaro sat in the stern. As they bumped against the hull of
Sea Raider
he went up over the rail and into the wheelhouse, took a tiny electronic box from his pocket, reached under the instrument panel until he found metal and put it in place attached by its magnet.

A moment later he was back in the inflatable. “Now the small dive boat,
Privateer
,” he said and Serra turned and moved toward it.

Max Santiago, wearing a white linen suit, was sitting in Caneel Bay Bar sipping a mint julep when Algaro came in. He wore a black tee-shirt and a loose-fitting baggy suit in black linen that made him look rather sinister.

“Did everything go well?” Santiago asked.

“Absolutely. I’ve put a bug on both of Carney’s dive boats. That means we can follow wherever he goes without being observed. Ferguson booked in just after six. I checked with the reservations desk. Dillon has booked a table for two up at Turtle Bay Dining Room.”

“Good,” Santiago said. “It might be amusing to join him.”

Captain Serra entered at that moment. “Have you any further orders, Señor?”

“If Dillon does as he did last night, he may probably visit this bar, Jenny’s Place,” Santiago said. “I’ll probably look in there myself.”

“So I’ll take the launch round to Cruz Bay, Señor, to pick you up from there?”

Santiago smiled. “I’ve had a better idea. Go back to the
Maria Blanco
, pick up some of the crew and take them into Cruz. They can have a drink on me later, let off a little steam if you follow me.”

“Perfectly, Señor.” Serra smiled and went out.

It was just after midnight at the Convent of the Little Sisters of Pity and Jenny Grant, who had gone to bed early, was restless and unable to sleep. She got up, found her cigarettes, lit one and went and sat on the padded windowseat and peered out into driving rain. She could see the light still on in the window of Sister Maria Baker’s office, but then, she never seemed to stop working. Strange how Henry had always kept her very existence a secret. It was as if he’d been somehow ashamed of her, the religious thing. He’d never been able to handle that.

Jenny felt much better than when she had arrived, infinitely more rested and yet restless at the same time. She wondered what was happening in St. John and how Dillon was getting on. She’d liked Dillon, that was the simple truth, in spite of everything in his background of which she thoroughly disapproved. On the other hand, you could only speak as you found, and to her he had been good, kind, considerate and understanding.

She went back to bed, switched off the light and dozed and had a dream of the half-waking sort, the U-boat in dark waters and Henry diving deep. Dear Henry. Such an idiot to have been down there in the first place and somewhere dangerous, somewhere unusual, somewhere people didn’t normally go. It had to be.

She came awake in the instant and spoke out loud in the darkness. “Oh, my God, of course, and so simple.”

She got out of bed and went to the window. The light was still on in the Mother Superior’s office. She dressed quickly in jeans and sweater and hurried across the courtyard through the rain and knocked on the door.

When she entered, she found Sister Maria Baker seated behind her desk working. She glanced up in surprise. “Why, Jenny, what is it? Can’t you sleep?”

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow, Sister, I just wanted to let you know. I’m going back to St. John.”

“So soon, Jenny? But why?”

“The location of the U-boat that Henry found and that Dillon is looking for? I think I can find it for him. It just came to me as I was falling asleep.”

Ferguson sat on the terrace at Turtle Bay and looked out to the Sir Francis Drake Channel, islands like black cutouts against the dark sky streaked with orange as the sun descended.

“Really is quite extraordinary,” the Brigadier said as they sipped a fruit punch.

“ ‘Sunsets exquisitely dying,’ that’s what the poet said,” Dillon murmured.

The cicadas chirped ceaselessly, night birds calling to each other. He got up and moved to the edge of the terrace and Ferguson said, “Good heavens, I didn’t realize you had a literary bent, dear boy.”

Dillon lit a cigarette, the Zippo flaring. He grinned. “To be frank with you I’m a bloody literary genius, Brigadier. I did Hamlet at the Royal Academy. I can still remember most of the text.” His voice changed suddenly into a remarkable impression of Marlon Brando. “I could have been somebody, I could have been a contender.”